Prioritizing People Over Profits With Purpose And Faith, Steve Robinson - Founding CMO Chick-fil-A

When it comes to fast food, people mostly focus on fast. With improving efficiency and a new sales-driven promotion every month, the faster a company can get food to customers, the better, right? Maybe not. Chick-fil-A developed a smarter idea—prioritizing People over Profits with Purpose and Faith.

On this episode of The Reboot Chronicles, one of Chick-fil-A’s founding C-Suite leaders, Steve Robinson, reveals untold stories on how they did it—in good times and bad. Steve was the founding Chief Marketing Officer of Chick-fil-A, where he and Founder Truett Cathy, built the most unconventional franchise model by doing something the world’s top corporations struggle with—prioritizing People over Profits. And it worked.

After some setbacks, Steve went on to create the most iconic fast-food advertising campaign—that not only differentiated them in a sea of fast-food sales-focused chains—but rebooted an industry. Now with over 3000 locations Chick-fil-A is one of three brands with U.S. sales over $20 billion, along with McDonald’s and Starbucks.

He went on to became a board member and authored Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A: How Faith, Cows, and Chicken Built an Iconic Brand.  It, and this episode, is the inside story of how they rebooted the sector, turning prevailing theories of fast-food marketing upside down while building one of the most successful and beloved brands in America.

How To Bring Faith Back Into Businesses

In today’s often-secular corporate world, many leaders shy away from integrating faith into their business life, but Robinson sees it as a strength. “One of the greatest leadership books ever written are the scriptures.” Drawing wisdom from texts like Proverbs, Psalms, and Ecclesiastes, Robinson believes leaders can learn timeless lessons on humility, service, generosity, and people-first decision-making.

Importantly, this faith-infused leadership wasn’t just top-down. Cathy built a system where operators and employees at every level were encouraged to act with purpose and integrity. From the rigorous vetting process to become a Chick-fil-A operator, to training infused with company stories and values, to robust measurement systems that hold teams accountable to both hospitality and food quality, the entire organization is designed to live out its purpose at scale.

Playing The Long Game

Most leaders have forgotten about or just ignore the long game. Often, when they enter a new role, they focus on making immediate impact, probably knowing they will leave in a few years, and they cycle continues. Steve took a different approach and that was to play the long game and take things slow. As he puts it “I spent my first year and a half listening to the Chick-fil-A operators and what were the challenges they were facing to build their business.” He gained valuable first-hand insights from the store owner operators, their customers, and the local competition too.

Investing In Mistakes

One of the pivotal moments in Chick-fil-A’s evolution came in 1982 when the company ran a nationwide coupon campaign that went way better than expected but resulted in a $2 million loss. Instead of penalizing Robinson, the leadership viewed the failure as an investment in Steve. His CEO said something I have not heard in decades: “Don’t worry about it. I supported you. I approved it. Besides, we’ve just invested $2 million in your education and you’re never going to make that mistake again.”  They also prayed on it.

This moment prompted a shift in strategy, moving away from transaction-focused promotions and instead developing an emotional connection with customers. This is also what lead to the famed Eat Mor Chikin campaign—using humor and storytelling to build brand loyalty rather than relying on discounts and deals.

About The Show

The Reboot Chronicles Show is a popular business podcast highlighting the world’s top leaders and CEOs through engaging peer-to-peer conversations that audiences love.

The show is available wherever people listen to or watch podcasts, with thousands of listeners, watchers, readers, and fans who turn to the platform for insights from top leaders who are rebooting everything from their industry and organization’s competitiveness to growth, innovation, technology, talent, culture…and more.  Reboot’s entertaining CEO conversations also provide audiences rare behind-the-scenes views of their personal and professional challenges—with actionable lessons on how listeners can reboot their organization, their career, and their life.

Tune in wherever you get podcasts or here: https://rebootchronicles.com/

About The Host

A WSJ Best-Selling Author, Forbes Contributor, and frequent media guest & speaker, Dean DeBiase is the Executive Producer and Host of The Reboot Chronicles Show, a top leadership podcast that has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, celebrities, and world leaders—unpacking their untold behind-the-scenes stories to help audiences transform their organizations and themselves.

Named “Growth Guru” by Inc., Dean is an award-winning Silicon Valley serial CEO who has led dozens of public and private organizations through diverse operating environments—creating hundreds of products, thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars of revenue, value, and capital.

Dean is a trusted advisor to CEOs and boards, helping emerging-growth companies increase their value, and scale toward IPO optionality, by tackling their most challenging issues, seizing emerging market opportunities—and developing new customers, partners, and ventures.

His award-winning Dancing with Startups Program, brings Fortune 1000s and scaleups together around the globe to accelerate growth, by leveraging global relationships with corporations, executives, thought-leaders, and emerging organizations, to co-create expansion initiatives, new ventures, and M&A.

Dean has an inclusive engagement-culture leadership style that attracts, builds, and inspires multi-generational/multi-national teams to be first-to-market leaders. His Reboot teams have been recognized for rapidly scaling organizations and producing industry-shaping products, services, and brands across sectors—that transformed industries, economies, and societies.

Connect with Dean here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keynotespeaker/

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